


It's been a long time

by metalkiralylany



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I'm sad., Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 15:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18719593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalkiralylany/pseuds/metalkiralylany
Summary: Sometimes it's better to fall apart.A missing scene from somewhere at the end of Endgame. Not naming any names but major things from the movie are referenced.





	It's been a long time

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all this is a mess. Please treat it like such.

There's a kind of exhaustion that won't let you rest. It's the ringing in your ears and the flashes of color behind your eyelids whenever you close them, the lingering smell of smoke and sweat, dried blood under your fingernails that's still there even when you've scrubbed your hands a thousand times, leaving the skin on your knuckles cracked and stinging.

 

Sometimes saving half of the universe doesn't feel like victory. It just made Steve feel like the only place in the world he belong to was six feet under the ground that he walked on as he left the battlefield, following the machines carrying what was left of one of his most trusted friends. Not long after the quiet funeral that the team held with an empty casket for the one no one ever expected to lose. 

Steve was stuck in a moment of limbo, waiting for the shock that never came, hit by a shell that refused to explode and just left him all wired up and numb simultaneously. This was far from the first time he had lost somebody close to him. Sometimes it felt like that's all life would ever be for him, one tragedy after another. The feeling was somewhat familiar, but this time there was something else, some finality he didn't have the words for just yet. It made every cell of his body itch. He scrubbed his skin raw under hot water and watched it heal, it didn't make any difference. Some sensations he couldn't just wash away. There was something fundamentally wrong with the world but there was no one for him to fight to make it right.

 

The door opened behind him. He didn't bother to turn around as he put the wet towel back to its place. Bucky stepped into the small bathroom and leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms loosely. Steve studied him silently through his reflection in the foggy mirror, the broad build of his shoulders, the way his long hair curled around his face and the relaxed way he looked back at him. In different times he'd probably have tackled Bucky right to the floor in a crushing embrace, knocking the air out of both of them and leaving an ugly bruise on Bucky's shoulder blade for the next couple of days that neither of them would've minded. The fact that he was back  _ yet again _ was truly a miracle. Everything about them was always so impossible, the unbreakable bond that survived almost a century provided several history books with more than enough material about heroism and companionship among other things.

But that wasn't them anymore. They weren't the people from before the snap, even though for Bucky it's only been a couple of days. They hadn't even had a proper conversation since the day of the fight. Steve walked away and Bucky kept his distance.

If Steve could've felt actual things, this would've broken his heart, the fact that that after everything they didn't seem to know where they stood anymore. Or at least  _ he  _ didn't. Not yet. This was new territory once more, and who knew what this new era would bring to the table. He let out a sigh and turned away from the mirror.

Bucky just… knew. He made no move towards Steve and he didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. It was all in his eyes – at least that never changed. 

Steve wanted to tell him that he was sorry, that he was glad that Bucky came back but all words seemed meaningless and they would've rang false and Bucky deserved better than that. He stepped around him and sat down at the small kitchen table, staring at nothing in particular. He did that fairly often these days.

He wasn't surprised when minutes later he felt a careful hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly, but at the same time he half expected Bucky to just leave. By all means, Steve would've deserved it. He reached for Bucky's fingers instinctively, lacing them together with his own. The warmth of Bucky's skin and the way they fit together without trying somehow made it more real than it felt before, but that only meant that everything else was real as well, the weight of the last few days pulling Steve under like a sinking ship into the darkness below. He welcomed it though, struggling to breathe with crushed lungs was still better than not feeling anything at all, it was a familiar kind of pain that paradoxically made it easier to ground himself in the present. He was allowed to be broken. He was coming apart but that was okay, he was perfectly fine with drowning because he knew that couldn't last forever. 

Bucky stood by him, still not saying a word, but Steve had no doubt that he was thinking about the same thing that he was, the one was so deeply ingrained in his memories and so easily triggered that sometimes he wasn't even sure if they had ever left it behind – peeling gray wallpaper and the smell of old dusty sheets in the ugliest hole in New York, both of them shaking in cold sweat, Steve from the fever that just refused to break and Bucky from sheer terror. That made him smile despite everything, because who would've thought back then, lives ago, that they'd end up this far from home, far from everything they knew and even from themselves. And then again, who could have said with absolute certainty that this wasn't just some fever dream, that he wasn't still there in that room?

Some things never changed. Like the way Bucky kept rubbing circles into the inside of Steve's wrist to the rhythm of his own heartbeat without even thinking about it, the way he held Steve's other hand against his chest to help him match his breathing. The fact that he was here at all. The element of fear was missing though, they both knew that Steve wouldn't die from a simple panic attack, but there was something else. Questions.  _ What are we now? Who are we? Where does this story end? _

Maybe none of that mattered. Maybe nothing did.

There'll always be an enemy to fight. But Steve was so damn tired. He was done. 

He finally felt what he had seen on Bucky's face ever since they had met at that rundown apartment in Bucharest.

He probably said at least some of that out loud because he then heard Bucky say, “I know.” 

And then Steve laughed a bit histerically and Bucky leaned down to plant a kiss on the top of his head, and everything was such a mess that he couldn't help but laughed a bit more. Steve briefly wondered how Bucky was so damn calm and collected and how he never had his time to fall apart like this because there was no one there to keep him together, yet somehow he still managed to be  _ this _ , he was still up on his feet and he was there wherever his friends needed him to be, and he did most of that work on his own before he had ever even set foot in Wakanda, and for a moment guilt was overwhelming. He meant to tell him all of this but what came out was “ _ You're whole _ .” 

But somehow that was enough.

 

Later, once Steve had managed to calm down, they lay side by side on clean sheets, with comfortable silence settled around them. They'll have that talk that needs to happen. And then Steve will properly say the things he never got to say before. He'll finally start giving back. But right then and there, drifting in and out of consciousness, knowing that  _ some things _ were still the same was all he needed.

 


End file.
